“I’m fine,” she assured him, voice pitched a little too high. “Totally, totally fine. Just busy. How are you?”
Francesca kept her back to him as she pulled out a clean rag and the stone counter-top cleaner she brought with her.
Casanova made a thoughtful sound in the back of her throat. It was the warning he always gave her when he planned to circle back around to something she wished to avoid talking about.“Work has been annoying me. I pissed off my cousin and he gave me a shit job as punishment.”
Rolling up her sleeves, she asked, “Did you deserve it?”
“Oh, definitely,” he answered, a warm note of laughter in his already rich voice.
“Well, then stop complaining.” She sniffed, spritzing the cleaner on the counter. “Nobody likes a whiner.”
“You know, you don’t have to clean in here,” he pointed out. “I haven’t stepped foot in the kitchen since you cleaned last time, and I didn’t even use it before then. You could skip it.”
They’d had this conversation before, so she knew exactly where he was going with it. First it would be the kitchen. Then it would be vacuuming the floors. Next thing she knew, he’d be insisting she not clean at all, and oh, look at that, he’s ordered a fancy dinner just for her and wouldn’t it just be easier to stay a while?
She’d made that mistake exactly once, and she never intended to make it again.
Her heart squeezed painfully as she passed her rag over the gleaming counter top of the kitchen island. Francesca wasn’t cut out for the kind of seduction Casanova offered — the casual, glamorous kind that burned hot and brief. She was a small town girl just trying to keep her head above water, but she liked to think she had enough good sense to not let a man likehimbreak her heart.
It’d been a fun evening. Really fun. The most fun she’d had outside of hanging out with Maxine that she’d had in years. Conversation with Casanova was easy and full of laughter even when there wasn’t wine involved. Sitting next to him on that couch was like curling up next to a fire and letting its warmth lull her to sleep.
He hadn’t asked her to sleep with him. He hadn’t been inappropriate or pushy. He’d just looked at her with thosemidnight blue eyes, the white streak in his hair and beard strangely endearing, and she realized that she couldn’t.
She liked him too much, and he’d never even bothered to tell her his name.
So she’d begged off, citing her need to get home. Nothing had been the same for her since.
“Just because you don’t cook doesn’t mean there isn’t dust in the air,” she argued, moving down the counter in a precise line. “This kitchen is a work of art. It deserves to be cared for even if it’s criminally underused.”
“You could use it,” he offered. She didn’t need to look to know he’d stepped deeper into the room.
Casanova never crowded her but somehow she always felt like she was being hunted when he prowled into her space. She wished she didn’t like it half as much as she did.
Long used to batting away his offers, she replied, “My kitchen works fine.”
“Yeah, but you like mine more.”
“True,” she admitted, thinking of the hot plate and half-size refrigerator that counted as a kitchen in her studio apartment. “But I still can’t.”
He leaned his hip against the counter beside her and crossed his corded arms. “Why not?”
Watching him out of the corner of her eye, she answered, “You don’t have any pots or pans, for one.”
He didn’t hesitate. “I’ll get them. I can have them delivered in an hour. Tell me what you want and it’s yours.”
Francesca shook her head. “Must be nice to be rich.”
“It is,” he replied in that charming, unabashed way of his. After many conversations with him, she was pretty certain the man had never met shame. “It’d be even nicer if you let me do things for you.”
“No, thanks.” She rounded the island’s corner, putting some necessary distance between them, and attacked the marble counter with a little too much vigor. Her sleeve slipped down, momentarily distracting her. Pushing it up past her elbow, she began, “By the way, I won’t be here next month. Someone else is going to cover?—”
A squeak of surprise left her when warm fingers curled around her forearm, stopping her quick swipes. She hadn’t even seen him move, but he was there, his much larger form looming over her like a thundercloud.
The smile that made her ache had disappeared. A chilling, almost blank expression had taken its place as he lifted her arm between them. His gaze was locked on the dark bloom of bruises that bled out from beneath her bunched sleeve.
“Explain this.”
She had no idea how to describe his tone. It wasn’t one she’d ever heard before, and yet it activated some unused part of her brain that screamed at her to run and hide.